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November 2008

November 28, 2008

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation are some of the most interesting people that I've ever come across.

They are a completely independent organisation dedicated to helping to improve the lives of people in the UK. They are driving the agenda for social justice in all areas of society and I have to say they are very impressive in terms of the work that they do.

Founded in 1904 by the world famous Rowntree chocolate family, one of the original aims that still holds true is to "to seek out the underlying causes of weakness or evil" that should contribute to "the right measures of human advancement" which over a period of time could "change the face of England".

Inspiring. And we're very pleased that they've asked us to reposition one of their key events.

We love designing stuff that makes a difference. It's not designing crisp packets is it?

Picture yourself hob-nobbing with people who knew Dali personally, chatting and eating molecular cuisine hand crafted by a Michelin star chef, and looking out over one of the most beautiful peninsulas in the world. This is a snapshot of the Time and Space experience. We were commissioned by the newly formed T+S team to create a brand for their new luxury holiday offering and sell this incredible experience. Big thanks go to all involved, the project has been a pleasure to work on and the site hopefully speaks for itself.

November 27, 2008

Here's the latest piece of print to come back through the doors of the old stables. It's the first piece of print for The Reputations Group's new brand identity and it's scrumptious! The business cards were just one part of the complete stationery range. The copper foil against the clean white card really looks quite tidy. Our very own Ted Steel (josh) was delighted with the results.

We commissioned Jason Tozer to photograph some of Robert Horne's coolest papers for an upcoming communications campaign aimed at designers and paper specifiers.

As we expected, he came up with some really beautiful images. He's famous for his bubble photography and we wondered what it would be like to let him loose on something as inherently interesting as different types of paper. Jason didn't disappoint and he came up absolutely tons of material, all of it really good.

November 26, 2008

Inspired by one of our clients, we thought it would be a cool idea to calculate how much electricity the office uses in order for us to make educated choices about lights and electrical stuff in the office.

Chloe got on the case and ordered Wattson - a rather ingenious device that connects wirelessly to your electricity supply and then proceeds to give you a running total of how much electricity you're using and at the flick of a switch, it tells you how much that would cost you annually (which is really frightening).

You can get them here - highly recommended, even if they do bring out the miser in everybody. Thryth has ejected the water cooler in favour of tap (a more sensible and cooler alternative we think) and it makes me smile to think how much money you can save just by turning a light in a room off after you've finished in there.

It really is one of the coolest thing we've bought but very distracting when sitting in meetings seeing how much electricity it takes to boil the kettle!

Those regular visitors to this blog will be familiar with the 'Rough Guide to Essex' project that we've been working on for the best part of 6 months now. The project was briefed in from our long standing arts-based client, Metal.

In fact I think the brief landed nearer 9 months ago making the analogy of birth/gestation/pregnant etc far to good to miss, and you know me, I'm never one to disappoint with a few birth related puns.

Anyway this project has been a real labour (geddit) of love for the guys who've been working on it - Chloe and Rich predominantly, although I think everyone in studio has had some input. It was a real treat then, when the first delivery batch arrived last week.

In order to get the first batch of guides delivered (see what I did there) into the hands of the all important student contributors the following day, it was all hands on deck stickering and wrapping for a few hours and it was worth it, they looked super cool.

Student reaction has been uncharacteristically enthusiastic (14 year olds have trouble getting excited about anything in case you didn't know) and it's testament to the finished items that we have a large group of teenagers quite rightly chuffed to bits in Southend-on-Sea, Harwich and Harlow.

On my way from one client presentation to another I wandered through the rather fabulous Borough Market in London. Such an impressive array of food produce, it's enough to make a foodie weep.

The beautiful light was helped by a nearby smoke machine (seriously) that was on hand for a TV commercial location shoot. It looked suspiciously like Walkers Crisps to me, the giveaway being a digger full to the brim with crisp packets.

November 20, 2008

We are delighted to share the news that we have been awarded a prestigious Silver
DBA Effectiveness Award for our branding of Leeds College of Music. Thompson
was one of only two Leeds agencies to win an award with the majority going to
London based operations.

The Design Business
Association (DBA) is the trade association for the UK design industry and is
the UK's most vocal champion of the role of effective design in the creation of
business growth. They believe the most important way of communicating the value
of design is by measuring its true effectiveness.Their annual Design Effectiveness
Awards, is the only award scheme that uses commercial data as a key judging
criteria and so accurately assesses the true commercial impact of great design.

Leeds College of Music has always been an
exciting and progressive place, with alumni like Matthew Bourne and Badly Drawn
Boy. However, prior to 2005 there was a substantial disparity between its
outward image and its reputation, and given the level of competition for the
very best national and international students, a job needed to be done to bring
the brand into line with the experience and Thompson seemed the obvious choice.

The resulting brand identity has increased
the College’s success every year since its introduction in March 2005.

The number of students attending open days
has increased steadily in the years following the re-brand; from 297 in
2004/2005 to 2000 in 2007/2008, which is an increase of 673% in 4 years.

2008 has been the College’s most
successful year ever.In April
2008, the Times Higher Education reported that Leeds College of Music were top
of the national league table for the biggest annual rise in UCAS
applications.Leeds College of
Music bucked the national trend with a 31.2% increase in applications.The achievement is all the more
impressive in the context of an average decrease of 9.2%, with some
universities experiencing a drop of as much as 28%.

It seems this Leeds
partnership is a real winner and one that shows every sign of continuing to be
successful in the future.

Photo below shows David Warren (Left) and
Phil Dean (right) with the award, which comes in two halves – one for the
client and one for the agency.

David Warren, Director of Development at Leeds College of Music said:

“We’re delighted to be awarded such a high profile award. For us it highlights the value of our investment and partnership over the years with Thompson.The award, which come in two halves, has been shared between Thompson and us and is a great reminder of both the success and our collaboration”.

Phil Dean, Managing Director at Thompson Brand Partners, adds:

“As a creative agency we understand the importance that good design can make to a business and this award just re-enforces that. It’s great to see the tangible results and success that can be had through design and design alone.”

This summer saw us appointed by engage
Super League club Leeds Rhinos rugby league as their retained marketing
agency.

We took place in a 5-way pitch,
including the Rhino’s incumbent agency, to secure the business and going
forward we will be responsible for all their advertising and communication
material throughout the season, which started in August 2008 with the season
ticket launch.

The first of our advertising campaign,
which broke this Summer, features three of
their lead players; Rob Burrow, Scott Donald and Ali Lauitiiti, all posing in
various super hero stances and supported by the strap line, “Your local
superheroes need you”.

Josh, one of our talented young designers,
created a range of collateral including a membership booklet, membership cards,
web pages, and an outdoor campaign of 48s & 96s, all aimed at encouraging
existing fans to renew their membership for the next season.

Leeds Rhinos are the newly crowned
back-to-back champion of the Engage Super League Champions having beaten St.
Helens twice in a row at Old Trafford in October 2007 & 2008.They also became the world’s leading
Rugby League club after beating Melbourne Storm in a magnificent display of
international rugby in the Carnegie World Club Challenge earlier in the season.

Richard is one of
Thompson’s top senior designers and has been with us for almost 3 years.In that time he has been an integral
part of the Thompson team and has worked closely on a vast variety of clients.These have ranged from the award-winning
Leeds College of Music prospectuses to Stationery for Kingsbury Press.

Richard decided to go on
to study Graphic Design at De Mountfort University after his school art teacher
told him she thought he was good with a pen and ink, and ever since then he has
had a real passion for all things design.

Outside of design his
interests include taking part in competitive badminton (he’s hoping to make it
to the Olympics in 2012), Rescuing stray cats and an unhealthy obsession with
cheesy puffs (crisps!) he just can’t put them down!